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Masterpiece School of Furniture offers a rich variety of furniture making and woodworking courses and our professional series is now open for enrollment. Indulge your inner woodworker and learn how to make world-class furniture. We teach furniture design, woodworking basics, wood carving, wood turning, joinery, wood finishing, and so much more.

Classes begin on September 2nd, 2014 and students can choose between 3, 6, and 9-month training programs.

At the tender age of sweet sixteen, and after a couple of years of making toast holders, magazine racks, cuckoo clocks, and music boxes, it was time to face the big, scary, real world. The end of my schooling was coming up fast. I hadn’t learned much apart from wood shop, drawing and some geography – well, that’s not quite true – I learned I was useless at math, algebra, English and P.E.

So I applied to join the Royal Navy. I thought that a journey around the world would be better than being stuck in Glasgow, in the cold and rain. My dreams were of faraway places with palm trees and dusky maidens – a lot more appealing than my current situation.

My navy application came and I was showing everyone my forms when my grandfather, his cigarette still stuck to his lip, suggested that what I really needed was to get a real job. Actually it sounded more like, “vot the f*ck is dis shite, come vith me” and he grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door.

He lived in the Gorbals, an area in Glasgow built in Victorian times and probably one of the worst slums in the world. There were some nice stone buildings, but it was still comprised of slums characterized by lots of poverty and people hanging out of windows watching others below. Every time I watch the movie Oliver, I think of Gorbals. There were all kinds of people and stores – Indians, Pakistanis, Jews, Chinese, Poles, all speaking with this weird Glasgow accent on top of their native ones. I remember queuing up for freshly made bagels – not like today’s bagels. These things were like rocks, but very tasty none-the-less.

So, off my grandfather and I went, walking for miles until we came to this little Joiner’s shop on Oxford Street. The sign outside read Alexander Allan and Son, Joiners. We went in to the tiny office and a small, receded glass door slid open and an old man’s face appeared. He seemed to be about a hundred years old to me and, with his small pinched face and small round spectacles, he looked like an owl. “Yes” he said. “Can I help you?” My grandfather, in his best posh accent said, “Dis boy is a great voodvorker and spends all his time vorking on making tings, you should apprentice him. … Read full article